Ends
by bebitched
Summary: The sky falls like a sheet inside a play fort, silent and slow. Multiple biblical references to Revelations. Contains strong language and sexual content.


**Title**: Ends

**Word Count**: 1,231

**Characters/Pairings**: Ensemble, Claire/Charlie, Claire/Sawyer

**Rating**: M (language, sexual content, character death)

**A/N**: This story is rather broken and abstract, but it all sort of fits together.

* * *

It starts with a clap. The sting of rain pelting his face and then… darkness.

* * *

No one watches the horizon for ships anymore. Hope sits idly in their hands and feet, worn from manual labor they wouldn't have bothered with if eyes still drifted to the sea or the signal fire wasn't used to roast boar. 

God can't see them in this place. They had already lost sight of Him a long time ago.

* * *

People are different here.

* * *

Aaron is with Sun for the day. 

Claire mats the grass beneath her, propping her head up under her arms and tracing a cloud drift across the sky as Charlie lifts up her skirt.

He's gentle with her, something she can say for all the boys she's fucked along the way. They touched her like a porcelain doll and stroked her hair like it was straw. Like she was going to break. She wishes that just once, someone would shove her up against a tree, slide their hands through her hair and pull until she screams.

* * *

Charlie would remember that she tastes like chamomile and sunshine. 

After, when Claire rolls over and Charlie runs his hands absently over her impossibly smooth skin, he notices the two tiny bumps at the base of her spine.

She hisses and pulls away, smacking his hand and bringing the airline blanket up to her chin.

That should have been the first sign.

* * *

Sun blames Jin when the garden won't yield fruit anymore. The evenly-spaced rivets carved in dirt lay undisturbed by plant life. Not a single green leaf pokes through the soil. 

"You sabotaged it again, didn't you!" she shrieks, throwing the nearest object she can find at his chest.

Locke can't explain where all the boar had gone. Migratory patterns, he surmises.

The cooking fire lays cold that night, coals dormant as the camp goes to bed hungry.

The next day Jin's fishing net is empty.

* * *

Hurley sees them first. 

Jack drops to his knees in the sand, dipping his hands into the cool seawater. He ignores the sting on his cuts as it cascades over his face.

Kate doesn't smile at Hurley when he makes some joke, just glances over at Jack, concerned, and excuses herself.

She passes Sawyer without a word and Sawyer never glances up.

Claire is sewing a onesie with an urchin spine when she looks up at the shouts of joy and surprise.

She locks eyes with Juliet. Claire's eyes narrow, her nostrils flaring up and her lips twisting into disgust.

She stands alone at the edge of camp, the only one not asking Juliet who she is and where she's come from.

Claire knows.

* * *

She doesn't blink as the buzz of locusts in the distance grows.

* * *

No one speaks that morning. 

The ocean laps against the beach, but something isn't right, this isn't right.

The water isn't blue anymore.

"Ruby." Sun whispers. "Like blood."

No one tells her she's wrong.

* * *

"Damn it." Jack curses, pressing a dirty cloth into her abdomen. "I can't get this bleeding under control." 

Juliet just looks at him, her expression blank. "Don't worry about it. I didn't expect anything more."

"Shut up!" Jack yells, then turns wildly to the crowd around him. "I need more towels. Why isn't anyone moving?"

They stare at him. Faces clear of guilt.

Jack looks at the knife beside Juliet's body, to the expression on Charlie's face and then back to the wound in Juliet's torso.

"Where is she?"

* * *

"I can't get it off." 

Claire scrubs her hands, dipping them into the river but hissing at the sting. Like acid.

The water here hasn't been safe for drinking in a week.

"It won't come off."

She digs bamboo under the fingernails, cleaning them out.

She doesn't realize it isn't Juliet's blood anymore. It's her own.

Charlie takes Claire's hand into his lap, stilling it there before lifting it to his lips.

She curls her fingers around his face, and he barely notices that she digs her fingernails into his cheeks.

"Was Jack mad at me?" Claire questions, like a child who is asking if she will be punished for knocking over mommy's favorite vase.

Charlie thinks back to the fire in Jack's eyes. He shakes his head no.

"No luv, he was just worried about you."

Claire nods, satisfied with his answer.

* * *

Sun dies in the night. 

The sheets soaked with blood, an agonizing screech and then silence.

Jin never even woke up.

* * *

"He was infected" 

The camp glances up at Locke. He's been missing for a month.

"I didn't know what to… It was an accident."

Claire doesn't look. She cocks her head to one side, studying Charlie's face.

There isn't any blood.

* * *

It surprises everyone that Jack isn't the one to do it. It had taken four to pry Jack off of Locke at Boone's funeral. It just took one to kill the other man. 

Sawyer doesn't utter a word as he strolls away from the older man's tent.

* * *

The beach is barren now. It's lifeless and even those who refused to move are comfortable with solid rock to their backs. 

Life moves slower there, day runs into night and visa versa until they're sure that a year has passed before the sun sinks.

* * *

Kate hears the hoof beats first, whipping her head around. She frowns when she sees him. 

His mane is white, not black and she doesn't recognize this one.

"You seen that horse Freckles?"

He looks at her quizzically.

"No, never."

* * *

Sawyer presses himself into her, bark scraping at her back and one leg around his waist. 

He's hard and fast and this is dirty, just like Claire wanted. But this isn't how she'd imagined it.

* * *

Kate doesn't grab a hold of either of them as the earth begins to shake and shiver, trying to knock them loose as gravity holds them there like velcro. She crawls to the farthest corner of the cave, where only her toes are distinguishable from the shadows and she grips her forearms as if this will keeps her sane. 

No one knows why she chose to bury herself in a cave-in.

* * *

Claire isn't sure what she's doing with the statue as she breaks it open on the side of a tree.

* * *

Boone stares at Jack with empty eyes, ready to topple to one side with his useless leg. 

"You're not him."

When Jack finally glances up, Boone is gone.

* * *

Claire hears a twig snap. She isn't scared when she sees Charlie, lifeless but still walking before her. 

She holds up the tiny baggie and the dirty needle.

"Help me?"

* * *

The sky falls like a sheet inside a play fort, drifting off the chair its propped onto, silent and slow. 

It doesn't rain anymore and they forget what water feels like trickling down their throats.

* * *

There are no more birds, no more insects, no more urchins to sew with. The wind doesn't blow anymore and strangely no one asks why.

* * *

There is smoke. Black smoke twisting into the atmosphere and they're coming. They're coming to take them away. 

Sound has no business here anymore. The baby screams with noiseless shrieks and he seems to be the only one trying to speak.

There aren't anymore words to say.


End file.
